Evolution’s been bugging me lately.
Been learning a lot about fertility. It’s a darned complicated process when everything is there and working. Beyond just the organs necessary, there are all the various fluids, timing, pathways. How the heck did all this evolve if it has to be there in order for procreation. It’s worse than a chicken and egg dilemma.
I mean, you can’t get a woman pregnant with your elbow or any other vestigial organ. So how were our predecessor species procreating until evolution invented the various sex organs and evolved them into complementary and functioning systems for reproduction?
Were the predecessors of mammals spontaneously splitting into two organisms to procreate while waiting for the sex organs to catch up?
If this occurred as a single random mutation, then it was one heck of a miracle to have two fully functioning systems, with all the parts and processes, and that these would be complementary to each other.
If sexual reproduction evolved in incremental steps, then the "survival of the fittest" part of the theory would imply a competitive advantage at each step of the evolutionary process but I fail to see the competitive advantage of a half evolved sexual reproductive system. Even getting past this, it is still a miracle that two systems could incrementally evolve to functional maturity, (through random mutation mind you), and at the end be perfectly complementary.
And throw in the gestation period, then need for critical timing for that gestation, a couple weeks either way and viability is threatened, not to mention that a full term pregnant female would be an EASY target for predators.....
Then there's the feeding the baby part. Lactation must be perfectly suited for the baby's arrival both in terms of quality for completely nourishing the baby until he can eat and timing so that the baby doesn't starve to death. That had to develop at the same time as the ability to reproduce, no less.
Not to mention that nine months is a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG time to be pregnant.